Armsmaster Holinka and Roo Desvin have returned from their vacations and will offer to sell Season 14 gear for honor points to players who have obtained a 2000 rating and earned the Grevious Conquest achievement.

Lore

We recognize that, for some guilds, the transition from 10-player Heroic raiding to 20-player Mythic raiding is going to be something of a challenge. This wasn’t a decision we made lightly. Ultimately, we feel that the long-term benefits for everyone, such as better-tuned raid encounters, a faster encounter design process, and more variety in raid mechanics, are worth the short-term consequences – even for players in guilds facing this transition.

That said, I think there are several key factors worth bringing up that will help make the transition less frightening overall. For example:

1) This change is coming with an expansion. Historically, an expansion release has always been a volatile time for guild rosters – and a great time for recruitment. When everyone’s gear is suddenly equalized, the pool of potential recruits swells dramatically. It's also a time in which a lot of former players, friends, and guildmates return to the game. Sure, maybe not all of the above will be of the caliber you’re looking for as a Mythic-minded raiding guild, but you only need 10.

2) On a similar note, we’re continuing to roll out the Connected Realms feature. As more realms are connected, the potential recruitment pool on those realms will grow.

3) While 10-player guilds who want to do Mythic will need to pick up an extra 10 people, current 25-player guilds will need to shed some. That’s yet another thing that will lead into a higher pool of potential recruits.

4) Flexible scaling for Heroic (or Mists of Pandaria's "Normal") difficulty will allow many guilds to "ease in" to a 20-player raid size. Granted, if you’re planning on zoning into Mythic the first day it’s available, this won’t help you much, but for the guild that will spend a few weeks or months on Heroic (MoP Normal) difficulty before eventually clearing it and starting on Mythic, you’ll have plenty of time to expand your roster. What’s more, those new recruits won’t be expected to just warm the bench while they wait.

I think that’s an easy one to forget about. It’s easy to make a mental comparison between a Warlords of Draenor 10-player guild trying to recruit up to 20 for Mythic, and a Mists of Pandaria 10-player guild trying to recruit up to 25. But that comparison doesn’t really work, because the absolute biggest challenge that the MoP guild in this example faces is finding people who are willing to wait around and possibly not even raid as the guild expands its roster. That’s not a problem in Warlords – while you’re still working through and gearing up in Heroic, player 11, 12, 13, and so on will be able to join you. It’s much easier to keep recruits around when they’re actually getting to play. :)Seeing a lot of debate about the number 20. Let me take a stab at clearing up a few things:

We chose to put Mythic at 20 largely for the function of raid design. One of the biggest issues we're currently facing with 10-player Heroic raiding is that of raid composition. It's impossible for every group to have every class, and often that means they're lacking in certain tools, which in turn means that we can't design encounters around those tools (or if we do, it becomes extremely frustrating for the 10-player Heroic guild that suddenly needs a Paladin for Hand of Protection).

We want to be able to use those sorts of mechanics again. Those of you who have been with us for a while might remember things like Mage tanks on High King Maulgar, or Priests using Mind Control on Instructor Razuvious. We want it to be okay when, say, the Paladin can use Hand of Protection to clear a dangerous debuff, because we can reasonably assume that most guilds will have at least one Paladin in their raid. We like it when someone gets to feel awesome and have a special task on a fight because of class abilities that otherwise wouldn't get much use.

We can't do that when we're designing with a 10-player raid size in mind. We don't think we'd be able to get away with it at 15 either. At 20, it becomes a lot more acceptable for us to say "you should probably bring a Mage to Spellsteal this." And honestly, that's just one example of the sort of encounter mechanics we can start to utilize in a larger group size.

I'd also call into question the statement of "It's easier to drop people than it is to recruit them." It's technically true, yes -- finding new raiders is harder than just not inviting the ones you have -- but totally ignores the fact that cutting people from your roster often means losing people you like. Which feels better: making new friends, or telling your current ones that they don't get to play with you any more? We're already asking a lot of many 25-player Heroic groups to cut 5 people.

As I mentioned before, this was not a decision we came to lightly. It's definitely going to be a very scary transition for a lot of people. We knew that when we made the decision. We just also feel quite strongly that, when the dust settles, we'll be able to provide a better raiding experience for everyone.

Comments

Comment by Marchen

Comment by Gulanga

on 2013-11-12T18:25:24-06:00

But what if you just want to raid with a close knit heroic 10 man team because you like that environment?

Disregarding the actual recruiting and finding people fit for your team, the management of a 20 player raid is very different from managing a 10 man one. So is the environment and "feel". I understand the reasons why Blizzard is implementing this idea, but I think they are underestimating this factor and they seem to be focusing on the "recruitment problem" part.

Comment by jossan34

on 2013-11-12T18:27:09-06:00

Well, I wish someday they bring the 40-man raids back.

Agree but can't imagine the horrible lag for some with more upgraded graphics and spelleffects etc with 40man.

Comment by harpuiablade

on 2013-11-12T18:32:23-06:00

Would be nice to see a 15man transition instead. the 25man guild can pick up 5 people and make two 15mans, and 10mans only need to recruit 5 people.

Comment by BigH

on 2013-11-12T18:36:29-06:00

So Mythic is the new Heroic and Heroic is the new Normal? I thought Mythic was a harder level above the current Heroic, and the other two were staying the same. Rats.

Comment by Bladeknight5

on 2013-11-12T18:41:18-06:00

But what if you just want to raid with a close knit heroic 10 man team because you like that environment?

Disregarding the actual recruiting and finding people fit for your team, the management of a 20 player raid is very different from managing a 10 man one. So is the environment and "feel". I understand the reasons why Blizzard is implementing this idea, but I think they are underestimating this factor and they seem to be focusing on the "recruitment problem" part.

Not wanting to meet 10 new people, isn't really an excuse when you're playing an MMORPG. As someone who's raided for the majority of WoW's life span (From 25s to 10s) You can have a tight knit group of 20 people. You have to make an effort to talk and speak to everyone, but that's kind of what MMORPGs are about. Interacting with your fellow player.

I wish people would stop using the "I want my community to remain a tight knit of people" when they really mean "I want to keep playing with the same 10-12 people and never speak to anyone else."

Comment by bluechicken

on 2013-11-12T18:47:08-06:00

But what if you just want to raid with a close knit heroic 10 man team because you like that environment?

Disregarding the actual recruiting and finding people fit for your team, the management of a 20 player raid is very different from managing a 10 man one. So is the environment and "feel". I understand the reasons why Blizzard is implementing this idea, but I think they are underestimating this factor and they seem to be focusing on the "recruitment problem" part.

my thought exactly.

I like this change myself but i have alot of friends and even from my 10man heroic raiders where lag is an issue if they are in LFR's or 25mans (so bad in fact that they say its slideshows), not sure how that work out with 20 people though, but in worst case they will lag and then it is very hard to do progression in mythic raids

Comment by Myzou

on 2013-11-12T19:02:00-06:00

Well, I wish someday they bring the 40-man raids back.

They've already said this would never happen because of how computer intensive 40 mans are now compared to the days of 40 man raids. They'd be isolating a very large amount of their raiders who just don't have the capability of supporting an extra 15 toons. Especially with the new HD character models.

Comment by hakwea

on 2013-11-12T19:10:13-06:00

But what if you just want to raid with a close knit heroic 10 man team because you like that environment?

Disregarding the actual recruiting and finding people fit for your team, the management of a 20 player raid is very different from managing a 10 man one. So is the environment and "feel". I understand the reasons why Blizzard is implementing this idea, but I think they are underestimating this factor and they seem to be focusing on the "recruitment problem" part.

But there is no way to solve that problem unless they make Mythic mode 10 players. Which is a possibility but then your same reasoning applies to a current 25-man guild. Why should they be forced to shed 15 players instead of just 5? Or why can't mythic be 25 players.

One "hard" difficulty has to many advantages in the long run then the short term disadvantages of 10 and 25 guild recruitment woes.

Comment by Siriath

on 2013-11-12T19:11:49-06:00

The problem is not recruitment, to get another 10 people (well, it is, but not the biggest). The problem is that 25-man guilds will have to perma-bench 5 people when they start raiding mythic, and 10-man guilds will have to recruit 10 additional people specifically for raiding mythics. Unless you have 2 tanks and 2 healers that will switch their specs around when hitting mythic, which sucks, considering they've been raiding as tank/healer through the whole tier beforehand.

Comment by hakwea

on 2013-11-12T19:14:13-06:00

I like this change myself but i have alot of friends and even from my 10man heroic raiders where lag is an issue if they are in LFR's or 25mans (so bad in fact that they say its slideshows), not sure how that work out with 20 people though, but in worst case they will lag and then it is very hard to do progression in mythic raids

Blizzard has already said the minimum system requirements will likely be increased with WoD but to what degree is unknown. While it does take some cash it doesn't take a lot to get a system that will play WoW with out lag in 10+ player encounters.

If they lag a lot with low settings, and few mods, then they will already run into trouble with higher quality models. As those show up every where. At what point should Blizzard design a the game around people with bad systems? Instead of designing the game around what ever is best for the game and have people upgrade their systems or be left behind.

Comment by alphakross

on 2013-11-12T19:19:55-06:00

Well, I wish someday they bring the 40-man raids back.

I wonder if Blizz ever thought making the flex go up to 40-man raids. All the awesomeness of the classics with the ease of getting groups together.

Comment by Gulanga

on 2013-11-12T19:42:19-06:00

But there is no way to solve that problem unless they make Mythic mode 10 players. Which is a possibility but then your same reasoning applies to a current 25-man guild. Why should they be forced to shed 15 players instead of just 5? Or why can't mythic be 25 players.

One "hard" difficulty has to many advantages in the long run then the short term disadvantages of 10 and 25 guild recruitment woes.

As I stated, I understand their reasoning and I know that is likely the right choice when it comes to heroic raiding, what I was pointing towards was the fact that they might have underestimated the possible backlash that will come from this decision.

Comment by slandry1100

on 2013-11-12T20:06:04-06:00

The problem my guild has is time. We have 3 10m cores and 1 25m but we raid when the people have time as all the time has be decided before hand. the other problem we have is one of our 10 m is working on heroics, the other are close to downing garrosh and the 25 m is working on seigecrafter now. so we have the people to make the 20m guilds but they will not be at the same place as other and will be under geared to the encounter compared to the other 10 people. they should bring back 40m or just leave it alone lots of people like to do just 10m lots like 25m another miss 40m.

Comment by oronare

on 2013-11-12T20:22:20-06:00

So Mythic is the new Heroic and Heroic is the new Normal? I thought Mythic was a harder level above the current Heroic, and the other two were staying the same. Rats.

No, this is just what Blizzard/some uninformed people WANTED people to think, to try and make 10 man heroic guilds be 'fine' with the changes.

Mythis IS Heroic mode just with a set 20 people, "heroic" in WoD is just normal mode, so all 10 man guilds who are doing Heroics right now/until the new expac will clear "heroic" (normal) in a week or 2 then have no content to do unless they find 15 new people, merge, or gquit and find a mythic guild, fun eh?

Mythic 15 would've been easier to swallow, and of course all those 25 man guilds wouldn't complain now would they? not after telling us 10 m ans to 'just recruit' and 'get over it'? surely?

Comment by Kanariya

on 2013-11-12T20:35:36-06:00

This is really a fantastic change in the long-run. The backlash is really Blizzard's own fault for letting 10-man be anything more than catch-up mode, but players need to realize that no amount of whining will change their minds and 20-man is here to stay.

I'm looking forward to the potential of class-specific requirements on fights, as well as the removal of homogenization, now that they no longer balance around 10 players.

Comment by kamodobone

on 2013-11-12T20:37:13-06:00

very cool changes

Comment by Wombat62

on 2013-11-12T21:10:20-06:00

The problem my guild has is time. We have 3 10m cores and 1 25m but we raid when the people have time as all the time has be decided before hand. the other problem we have is one of our 10 m is working on heroics, the other are close to downing garrosh and the 25 m is working on seigecrafter now. so we have the people to make the 20m guilds but they will not be at the same place as other and will be under geared to the encounter compared to the other 10 people. they should bring back 40m or just leave it alone lots of people like to do just 10m lots like 25m another miss 40m.

You do realise that you will have to be lvl100 before you raid in WoD ?-you will not have any gear whatsoever equipped that you get from MoP by that time

Comment by leaponover

on 2013-11-12T22:23:31-06:00

So Mythic is the new Heroic and Heroic is the new Normal? I thought Mythic was a harder level above the current Heroic, and the other two were staying the same. Rats.

No, this is just what Blizzard/some uninformed people WANTED people to think, to try and make 10 man heroic guilds be 'fine' with the changes.

Mythis IS Heroic mode just with a set 20 people, "heroic" in WoD is just normal mode, so all 10 man guilds who are doing Heroics right now/until the new expac will clear "heroic" (normal) in a week or 2 then have no content to do unless they find 15 new people, merge, or gquit and find a mythic guild, fun eh?

Mythic 15 would've been easier to swallow, and of course all those 25 man guilds wouldn't complain now would they? not after telling us 10 m ans to 'just recruit' and 'get over it'? surely?

And your math is sad....10 new people not 15.

I think this was a well thought out change by the explanation given and why they didn't want to make it 15m. It all makes sense and in the end I think they are right...this will lead to a stronger raid environment rather than a weaker one. I've been trying to find a new guild that can raid on specific nights and it's been impossible. This will help me out immensely!